★★★½
“Hard to the core.”
I’ve written occasionally about the more extreme end of women’s wrestling, but it appears not for a while. It was back in 2012-13 when I covered IWA Mid-South: Queen of the Deathmatch and FMW: Torn to Shreds. A fair amount of water has gone under the bridge in the field, since I bemoaned “the largely pathetic excuse for it put out by the WWE”. We had the Divas “Revolution” in 2015, which eventually led to the WWE’s first all-female PPV, Evolution, in 2018. Becky Lynch, Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair then headlined Wrestlemania that year, the first women to do so.
But it’s still very unlikely you will see mainstream promotions go ‘hardcore’, using weapons and bleeding. That said, in March this year, AEW had a somewhat controversial match between Britt Baker and Thunder Rosa, which ended with both participants wearing the crimson mask. Generally, however, if you want that – and if you don’t, that’s perfectly fine too, for I appreciate this is not to everyone’s taste – you need to dig down into the world of independent wrestling.
Which brings us to CCW’s Goddess of Gore 2, held at American Legion Post #335 in South Gate, California, on October 3rd, before a crowd of… dozens. Okay, that is a bit snarky. We have worked for and patronize a lot of independent federations locally, and the crowd for them is typically along similar lines, between one and two hundred. That is a bit sad, because given what the participants go through, they deserve more. Then again, tickets for this show started at forty bucks, which is easily twice the price of what we’d pay here in Arizona. Maybe, like petrol, professional wrestling just costs more in California.
The format was simple: eight women in a knockout tournament, so the winner would need to win three matches in the night to take home the trophy. The participants were a broad mix, including veterans and relative newcomers. Ironically, the former included Mickie Knuckles, who was the winner of 2006’s Queen of the Deathmatch. The others included Randi West, who has been fighting even longer then Knuckles, starting her pro career in 2002; Mariah Moreno, a transgender wrestler; and the wonderfully named Ludark Shaitan, who came up from Mexico for the event.
Things did take a little while to get going, with the first match almost blood-free. However, things escalated thereafter, with the next bout, between Knuckles and Ruby Raze including – and I wrote all this down – fluorescent light tubes, a TV set, an apparently real beer bottle (which failed to break on the victim’s head!) and a weed-whacker. This was more like the kind of insane mayhem I expected, given the title. In terms of pure wrestling, the third match might have been the best, in which “Pumpkin Queen” Sage Sin prevailed over “The Patron Saint of Filth” Christina Von Eerie [Yeah, no pro wrestler ever undersells themselves!]
But it was in the semi-finals where the carnage ramped up to another level. West faced Shaitan, who deserves credit for wrestling back-to-back matches, with little or no rest (at over 11 minutes, this was also the longest bout in the tournament). It ended with West beating Shaitan, after driving her through a door, after coming off the top rope. There may also have been a cheese-grater involved. [Quick aside here: despite the small attendance, I did find CCW’s presentation of the event quite impressive and professional. It was helped in particular by commentators Kris Kloss & Kikyo, who managed to be both enthusiastic and informative]
The other final saw Knuckles taking on Sage Sin, and certainly had some of the more… original items. A car windshield was propped up in one corner, and at one point, Sin tried to drive Knuckles through an ironing-board. That particular move ended with Mickie’s head catching the edge of the board, in a sobering reminder that, especially in this kind of wrestling, shit happens. Still, Mickie was able to recover, surviving that and being swatted with a fan of light tubes. She reached the final, albeit with the help of some outside interference. This may have made more sense in the broader scheme of CCW storylines; to this casual viewer, however, it seemed rather pointless.
So: West vs. Knuckles it was, proving that experience matters. Neither might be exactly what a non-fan would think of as lady wrestlers – lady truckers might be a bit cruel, yet not unfair – but you can’t argue about what really matters. That would be their willingness to put their bodies on the line for our amusement. In the beginning, they were chained to each other with barbed-wire, and the ring hadn’t even been cleared of the debris left over from the semi-finals. It did not take long before both women were bleeding: Mickie had the worst of the early exchanges, as Randi stapled her shirt to her opponent’s head, then used it to choke her.
The ring, by this stage, was awash in broken glass, thumbtacks, beer and god knows what else, making things even more treacherous. It was only when West was able to throw Knuckle through the windscreen, and cover her for the pin. But it was kinda touching how, after the bout, Knuckles spoke in glowing terms about her veteran opponent. West, too, seemed genuinely moved by having won an actual trophy: “In wrestling, you don’t get a lot of tangible rewards.” Yeah, pro wrestling is staged, I know. But having seen what West had gone through over the course of one night, I’m in agreement with the crowd and their chants of “You deserve it!”
Promotion:: Crimson Crown Wrestling
Star: Mickie Knuckles, Randi West, Sage Sin, Ludark Shaitan
